Upper Deck Entertainment Forums

1220434:

Reordering a deck where you have no, or little, prior knowledge about is as good as perfect randomization.

This is absolutely wrong. I want to emphasize that Chad is completely right with his explanations. It is not possible to randomize a deck via pile shuffling only, no matter how many instances of pile shuffling will be done. This is scientifically proven. You should not trust your own experience.

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André Bronswijk, Germany

*sigh* The next level3 who doesn't see the point. Ofcourse, pile shuffle is nothing but a reorder. But if you have no knowledge of a position, which  nearly noone has, then it doesn't matter.

You people claim  cheating is easy with pile shuffle, simply because there is a mathematical solution. I want to see any of you doing it in a big tourney. It just won't work, it's neigh impossible to get your cards in the exact right spot. Remember putting them even one slot wrong, will result in the card being in a totally different place, which most probably works in your disadvantage if you want to cheat. To have a god starting hand, you have to get 7 cards in the right place. If 1 is neigh impossible, what about 7? You just can't cheat this way in a tourney scene. If anyone saw his opponent counting and putting in some cards at exact places, thye would most probably be calling a judge over, because he's obviously cheating...

It doesn't matter if it's random or not, it's a reordering where you have to be a god to have the cards there where you want it... Unlike Riffle Shuffling, where it is really easy and is hard to notice. Yes that one takes a little bit of practice, but anyone can easily do it...

In an case, I never voted for Pile Shuffle as being the only way we should allow and teach. I simply said that pile shuffle will most probably be enough and it's the easiest to teach to other players... You guys want to give out penalties for bad randomization, but you don't see the big picture. Who's gonna teach the players this? How is that person gonna teach them to shuffle? When? Where?

Anyone can think about what you said, but neither of you has answered the above mentioned questions, while those are imperative to what you guys want... I donated a simple solution, one that is good enough in 90% of the cases and you shoot me down. But you guys have yet to give a solution to the problem. You simply saw 2 words near eachother "pileshuffle" and "randomization" and you cracked. Each post I have ended with what is important in this conversation and each time, you guys just skipped that part. A judge who is so fixated like you are, is, in my humble oppinion, a bad judge. You're not seeing the full picture, just "deck shuffling" I hope you're doing a better conversation in the level-3 forums, than what you are showcasing here...

You don't have to achieve near perfect randomization, you just should have a deck where you have little to no knowledge about the exact position of cards. This CAN be achieved with near perfect randomization, but there are better ways. That's the last thing I will say on  this subject, now I'll just wait and see what UDE decides regarding this and I darn well hope they're not just gonna give out penalties with telling us lower level judges how the *** we should teach them how to shuffle. I don't have time to teach people to shuffle during a tournament and I don't have time after it. Think about the consequences, before voting for something...

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

1220434:

*sigh* The next level3 who doesn't see the point.

I see your point. I just decided to write nothing about it, because Chad already wrote all important about that.

Ofcourse, pile shuffle is nothing but a reorder. But if you have no knowledge of a position, which  nearly noone has, then it doesn't matter.

You will very rarely have a situation where you don't have knowledge about card positions. E. g. at the end of a WoW game a player grabs all his cards and now will have a clump of quests. It's very easy to pile shuffle the cards in a way declumping these quests. But that's not randomisation.

It just won't work, it's neigh impossible to get your cards in the exact right spot.

It's more easy than you might think. But I will not discuss such things in a public forum, because it could help cheaters.

In an case, I never voted for Pile Shuffle as being the only way we should allow and teach. I simply said that pile shuffle will most probably be enough (...)

And we just wanted to explain you that you're wrong this way.

You guys want to give out penalties for bad randomization, but you don't see the big picture. Who's gonna teach the players this? How is that person gonna teach them to shuffle? When? Where?

I see no problem to teach players good shuffling methods during a tournament. Or during casual play at the local store.

A judge who is so fixated like you are, is, in my humble oppinion, a bad judge.

That's not a good manner for discussion. You are discrediting yourself.

I don't have time to teach people to shuffle during a tournament and I don't have time after it. Think about the consequences, before voting for something...

I'm surprised that you believe you don't have time to educate players. Therefor we are judges!

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André Bronswijk, Germany

How many judges, do you think will be able to teach their players how to shuffle? I for one don't have enough time, there's always someone with questions. When should we teach them? In the middle of a match, where players have a time limit? Or maybe in between matches, while we're busy getting the new rankings out? Or you know, maybe we'll try organizing an evening with a boring lecture on  how to shuffle decks...

I don't know in what kind of local play you live in, but there's simply not enough time to reach everyone... and with a community as thriving as WoW in my local play, most of my time would be taken up by teaching them how to shuffle. When shall I explain rules? Give demos? Keep an eye on actual tourney play?

You just can't take the time at the start of a match or in between. Unless if there are 2 judges, which is not a common thing...

But, let's assume someone on these forums comes up with a good teaching idea. It's possible, that's why these forums exist. How many persons will read it? It's not even 50% of all judges. So for me, the above mentioned problem will be solved, but for many others it will not. Their players come to a DMF and they get a penalty for bad shuffling. This will result in an unhappy player and will eventually be bad for the game.

There is a solution. Something which I'm very much a fan of, but I haven't found any information about it. A monthly or less newsletter. With the right people writing it, we can reach many judges. Sent out to all persons who judged a tourney in the 6months before that (don't let them choose). That way, the message could be delivered to all judges and maybe with some extra information regarding how to shuffle best.

The discussion of what is the best shuffling technique, should not be held. I personally know that the more shuffling techniques are used, the higher chance of randomization. The discussion held above, was not really necessary and I think we all were talking next of eachother. My apologies. My apologies aswell for my previous post. I got slightly irritated with the continous hammering on an irrelevant subject.

Edit: Btw, you made it seem I'm not a judge with your last sentence, I hope I just misread that.

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

1220434:

I don't know in what kind of local play you live in, but there's simply not enough time to reach everyone... and with a community as thriving as WoW in my local play, most of my time would be taken up by teaching them how to shuffle.

Usually there is no need for that much time as you did describe here. I was the owner of a fantasy store for 11 years. I did teach players anything about tournaments (including shuffling) for 13 years. I never had a problem with not enough time. And I know a lot of judges being able to teach things like that too.

Edit: Btw, you made it seem I'm not a judge with your last sentence, I hope I just misread that.

Yes, you did misread that. I just wanted to remind you one important reason for being a judge.

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André Bronswijk, Germany

By allowing players to shuffling improperly at your local events, you are doing them a disservice. If and when they decide to go to a competitive event, you are almost guaranteeing them a game loss, or worse, a DQ.

Exactly how big are your local events? How many players are you getting?  Most of the time you just need to tell them to riffle shuffle. If a player doesn't know how to riffle shuffle, grab a player you know and ask them to teach the new player how to shuffle. You don't nesserically have to do it yourself. There have been many times I have grabed a player I knew and asked them to show a new player how to do something.

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Chad Daniel
PM 3
WoW 3
Vs 3

Play nice everyone. I don't mind arguments, but lets not throw ad hominem fallacies around. I would think that the audience of these forums is much too sharp for that...

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Alex Charsky
Judge Manager
Upper Deck

731819:

Play nice everyone. I don't mind arguments, but lets not throw ad hominem fallacies around. I would think that the audience of these forums is much too sharp for that...

You're right and I owe some apologies, I believe. I know internet fora always have this trap set in front of you, where you can easily fall into. I won't make this grand error again.

My opinion, however hasn't changed. We should teach the players to shuffle, both their own and their opponent's deck. However, we shouldn't punish them for bad shuffling, nor should we have punishments for putting the right cards at the right place.

In the first case, the punishment will probably come from their own loss. As I said before, some judges don't have the time to teach their local players. I might find the time, if I rethink my time, but some judges don't have a weekly reach of their players and when they do, they're busy with other rulings, most probably.

In the second case, it is too hard to verify wether it was intentional or not. We're talking randomising here, there's always a chance that a hand falls exactly in the right place. Smarter players would put 5 of the 7 cards right and you wouldn't be able to tell for sure, yet their chances for victory are already better than his opponent's. Here we should remind players to decently shuffle their opponent's deck.

I wonder why I restated all my points, but maybe, after a small break in the discussion, we can restart it, without any grudges to eachother. Once again, my apologies if I misbehaved greatly.

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

1220434:

My opinion, however hasn't changed. We should teach the players to shuffle, both their own and their opponent's deck.

Yes, this comes through training players, the same way we train them on what to do with result slips

1220434:

However, we shouldn't punish them for bad shuffling, nor should we have punishments for putting the right cards at the right place.

Er, I'm guessing you're not really suggesting we don't punish cheaters..... moving on

1220434:

In the first case, the punishment will probably come from their own loss. As I said before, some judges don't have the time to teach their local players. I might find the time, if I rethink my time, but some judges don't have a weekly reach of their players and when they do, they're busy with other rulings, most probably.

Well, if they cheat correctly, I'm guessing they'd win their game, not lose.. that's usually the point.  As for finding time to teach players, most judges I know that run local events (which is where this training should be coming from) are also regular guests of their local shop where the game is played casually.  These are perfect times to interact with the players that play in both your events and higher-level events such as Regionals.  This is the time you should be training them to shuffle their opponent's deck.. For instance when you yourself are playing a game with someone, shuffle their deck, and comment on how you should always shuffle your opponent's deck when it's presented to you (no need to go into why, that part should be pretty clear).

1220434:

In the second case, it is too hard to verify wether it was intentional or not. We're talking randomising here, there's always a chance that a hand falls exactly in the right place. Smarter players would put 5 of the 7 cards right and you wouldn't be able to tell for sure, yet their chances for victory are already better than his opponent's. Here we should remind players to decently shuffle their opponent's deck.

There's always the chance the random cards fall into exactly the right positions, yes, mathematically this is a correct statement.  The probability of this happening however is very very small, and it happening on a regular basis should be a red flag.  Additionally, this is why we investigate this type of situation.. Through careful investigation we can come closer to the truth then we can on an initial assessment of a situation.  Any move toward a cheating violation should only ever come after careful investigation.

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- Jon Lacey
- UDE Lv3 (YGO/PM)
- Chicago, IL

838932:

1220434:

However, we shouldn't punish them for bad shuffling, nor should we have punishments for putting the right cards at the right place.

Er, I'm guessing you're not really suggesting we don't punish cheaters..... moving on

I am in fact suggesting to not punish cheaters, although, I should clarify myself, perhaps. A player who does that, MUST shuffle his deck afterwards, if he refuses, then yes he's cheating. If he doesn't and both he and his opponent get a chance to shuffle, then I personally wouldn't consider this cheating. (At the moment, I do rule it as cheating) The reason behind this are because of earlier stated examples:
-A player might have shown his deck to a friend by laying it out (right cards might have been put together)
-A player sideboarded a whole new tactic in and put the cards a bit from eachother (this should be considered the same as doing this with other cards in your deck, because it IS the same)
-A player puts in all his resources (mainly quests in WoW) 1 by 1 each with a little bit of spacing, to prevent them from clumping.

You might argue that some of these reasons are not real enough to penalty. However, in my eyes, these reasons are exactly the same as another player who puts the whole of his tactic in the right place right before the match starts. That's why I say, a player who doesn't shuffle (or doesn't allow his opponent to) should be punished, not a player who puts cards in decent places and then shuffles good.

I hope this clarified my point of view.

838932:

Well, if they cheat correctly, I'm guessing they'd win their game, not lose.. that's usually the point.  As for finding time to teach players, most judges I know that run local events (which is where this training should be coming from) are also regular guests of their local shop where the game is played casually.  These are perfect times to interact with the players that play in both your events and higher-level events such as Regionals.  This is the time you should be training them to shuffle their opponent's deck.. For instance when you yourself are playing a game with someone, shuffle their deck, and comment on how you should always shuffle your opponent's deck when it's presented to you (no need to go into why, that part should be pretty clear).

I disagree. I know many local judges from other places, that have to work during the day (so they can't pass the shop) and don't have enough time during the weekend. Many judges do this as a hobby but can't put in enough time. Their judging is enough for local level, but not for anything bigger.

I do find the "playing with someone" idea doable. I myself have been thinking about putting some posters out in the shop to show 3-4 different methods to shuffle (with the message that many is better than 1) It would be awesome if UDE could create something like this?

838932:

There's always the chance the random cards fall into exactly the right positions, yes, mathematically this is a correct statement.  The probability of this happening however is very very small, and it happening on a regular basis should be a red flag.  Additionally, this is why we investigate this type of situation.. Through careful investigation we can come closer to the truth then we can on an initial assessment of a situation.  Any move toward a cheating violation should only ever come after careful investigation.

Sometimes, you don't see a player enough (or check a player enough) to be ableto do a careful investigation. I agree with what you say, but I can't believe that there is any possibility of checking this, except for local level. However, the stakes just aren't high enough for a player to risk it there. I have yet to judge a DMF level tournament (DMF Stuttgart will probably be my first), however, I can't see how it's possible to do a careful investigation... You can't punish a player for checking him once, maybe a warning. He might be smart and try not to do it anymore THAT tournament. Tournament afterwards he'll do it again, because there is no way of tracking wether he has been checked (on high level, it seems hard to remember which player did what). So either you will punish for 1 time event (poor boys who are just lucky) or you won't punish at all (yay for the cheaters). In seldom cases where the cheater is just plain stupid, he will get caught. But the best cheaters are not stupid, next to cheating they will also know how to play...

I hope I made you see how hard it is to actually catch and punish cheaters. I can be wrong ofcourse and I hope you can enlighten me with some good methods (always great to learn from the better). A crusade/pure hate against cheaters is all nice and dandy, but if there's no good way to actually acuse someone of it, then punishments should not happen. Luckily there is the healthy dose of Human knowledge every judge has. I bet the person at that DMF who ruled a 2Hander could be worn together with a shield has a lot of it (apologies if this was too rude). Relying on something like Human Knowledge, where you will say things like "It happened more than once that he got some good luck, we should punish him" is something that should be completely avoided. You will do more harm with anything like that (even in less exaggerated sense) than with just scrapping the rule.

This is exactly why I would vote for deleting the rule that prohibits people from putting cards in the right place and strongly enforcing the "must shuffle decently rule both yours and your opponent's deck". But then we are back at a few posts earlier. What is good shuffling and how can we learn the players this "good shuffling" in a way that they can actually execute it easily and we don't lose too much time with teaching...

(apologies if I sounded too rude at some points, it might have happened without the intention)

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

Patrigan:

-A player might have shown his deck to a friend by laying it out (right cards might have been put together)
-A player sideboarded a whole new tactic in and put the cards a bit from eachother (this should be considered the same as doing this with other cards in your deck, because it IS the same)
-A player puts in all his resources (mainly quests in WoW) 1 by 1 each with a little bit of spacing, to prevent them from clumping.

I belive this has been stated before, if they are collecting their deck after a game of de-sidedecking or even if they pull out a couple cards to show a friend a combo, as long as the cards are inserted face down in a face down deck, they are still random and there is no presorting or pre-ordering.

Patrigan:

I disagree. I know many local judges from other places, that have to work during the day (so they can't pass the shop) and don't have enough time during the weekend. Many judges do this as a hobby but can't put in enough time. Their judging is enough for local level, but not for anything bigger.

this is where you can enlist some of the players to help you. teach one player that is there all the time and willing to help out (in my experience there are always players willing to help out, if they are just asked). After you teach that player how to shuffle (or found one that already knows) recruit him to help teach the younger or less experienced players.

Patrigan:

Sometimes, you don't see a player enough (or check a player enough) to be ableto do a careful investigation. I agree with what you say, but I can't believe that there is any possibility of checking this, except for local level. However, the stakes just aren't high enough for a player to risk it there. I have yet to judge a DMF level tournament (DMF Stuttgart will probably be my first), however, I can't see how it's possible to do a careful investigation... You can't punish a player for checking him once, maybe a warning. He might be smart and try not to do it anymore THAT tournament. Tournament afterwards he'll do it again, because there is no way of tracking wether he has been checked (on high level, it seems hard to remember which player did what). So either you will punish for 1 time event (poor boys who are just lucky) or you won't punish at all (yay for the cheaters). In seldom cases where the cheater is just plain stupid, he will get caught. But the best cheaters are not stupid, next to cheating they will also know how to play...

Actually at larger events there are teams of judges dedicated to checking decks. Decks are taken from the players after they present to their opponent. If a judge on the deck check team suspects a player is stacking their deck, they can note the pattern and specifically target that player later to see if there is a similar pattern later. most of the time deck checks are selected purely at random, but there are times they are targeted. Most players that cheat think that if they were deckchecked once, then they are safe. However, when selecting tables for deck checks at random (before knowing who would be at those tables), I have personally deck checked the same player as many as 4 times in one tournament. So even if you do target someone, they often won't think it is anything other than coincidence.

In addition, asking the right questions and watching the player's body language can usually tell you if they were intentionally cheating or it really was just random luck.

Patrigan:

I hope I made you see how hard it is to actually catch and punish cheaters. I can be wrong ofcourse and I hope you can enlighten me with some good methods (always great to learn from the better). A crusade/pure hate against cheaters is all nice and dandy, but if there's no good way to actually acuse someone of it, then punishments should not happen. Luckily there is the healthy dose of Human knowledge every judge has.

No one ever said catching cheaters was easy and as you said, we have our own knowledge and experience that we can use. To be honest, most players that cheat and get away with it once are more likely to keep trying and tend to get more careless until they are caught. As for if you accuse someone that is innocent of cheating, part of the process is to get their statement so UDE can investigate it further if needed. That gives that player a chance to state their case to UDE directly.

There was one time that I was not 100% sure but 90% sure they were cheating, when I told them that I was probably going to DQ them for cheating, their response confirmed it 100% for me. They acted as if they expected it and their only concern was if the rounds they already played would still count. Their reaction might have still swayed me that they were innocent if they hadn't acted like they knew they were guilty.

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

So you're saying that declumping your deck, by dividing your deck into stacks of abilities, quests and allies and equipment and then making sure none of these are close together, is not considered cheating?

That would be weird, because to me, in essence, that is exactly what most players do and in essence it's more than enough to have an edge up front. Yes, they still have to randomise it, but most players randomise badly (although that's hard to spot in most cases).

The fact that I dislike accusing players where I'm not certain, is probably because I'm still a bit inexperienced on bigger tourneys. Maybe in time, I will be able to see the things just as good as you do. Luckily I haven't actually ran in with a lot of cheaters. Or better said, I haven't been able to catch many cheaters ;)

What you did say about cheaters getting caught, however, is completely wrong. I know Magic players, who cheat. They never get caught and they have won tourneys. If they did get a warning that their deck seems stacked, they just used another tactic, one that didn't involve stacking. Sometimes they just didn't cheat anymore that tourney (they could win without too). They're just not stupid, but they did know that cheating would help a great deal. Your tactics only catch the stupid players, who in essence, won't win a prize anyway, because they probably don't even play good. They need to be caught too, that's a fact, but saying that you can't catch most players with those tactics is stupid. Those players that usually matter most for the top rankings, are the ones that have the lowest chance of getting caught.

PS: I did NOT support their actions, but I wasn't a judge in those days and I wasn't interested in Tourneys or judging back then either. I just wasn't interested in Magic, I guess. If I would know WoW-players, I would tell them that they better never come to a tourney where I judge and if I was 100% certain I would even post it around here or something.

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

1220434:

What you did say about cheaters getting caught, however, is completely wrong. I know Magic players, who cheat. They never get caught and they have won tourneys. If they did get a warning that their deck seems stacked, they just used another tactic, one that didn't involve stacking. Sometimes they just didn't cheat anymore that tourney (they could win without too). They're just not stupid, but they did know that cheating would help a great deal. Your tactics only catch the stupid players, who in essence, won't win a prize anyway, because they probably don't even play good. They need to be caught too, that's a fact, but saying that you can't catch most players with those tactics is stupid. Those players that usually matter most for the top rankings, are the ones that have the lowest chance of getting caught.

I think if you compare the UDE Suspended Players list with the Yugioh rankings in North America you'll see a numerous (too many as a matter of fact) of the players from first page of the rankings also on the suspended players list. Cheaters DO get caught eventually, yes, event the good ones.

Patrigan:

So you're saying that declumping your deck, by dividing your deck into stacks of abilities, quests and allies and equipment and then making sure none of these are close together, is not considered cheating?

Not at all. If you are SORTING your deck then declumping you are presorting.  Your example was that a player after a match typically gathers the quests that were used together, then inserts them into the deck. If this is done with deck and quests face down, then it is not cheating. If he spends a minute and separates the deck into different card types or pulls out all the quests from the deck, then 'declumps', it is most definitely cheating.

Patrigan:

What you did say about cheaters getting caught, however, is completely wrong. I know Magic players, who cheat. They never get caught and they have won tourneys. If they did get a warning that their deck seems stacked, they just used another tactic, one that didn't involve stacking.

There is where you are misunderstanding what I was saying. If I deck check someone and SUSPECT they are stacking their deck or I think there is a pattern but not enough to be sure, then I will return the deck as if nothing is wrong. Then later deck check that same player again. They will think they got away with it and most likely continue cheating. A few more nervous ones will stop and not get caught on that, but more often than not, they will continue. As John said, look at the YGO suspended list and you'll see what I'm saying is true. In some cases they get so arrogant about thinking they won't get caught, they cheat when the judge is watching then are shocked when it is noticed.

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

Why would face down cards be different than face-up?

For example, let's say I take my deck and the quests. I can insert the quests in such a way, that I know where they are (as discussed earlier in this thread), then I can still shuffle, and still know where the were. Now, let's say, I know where I put that great card face down in my resources, I'm taking all my resources and putting them face down in apile and then I will do as you suggest, which is not cheating...

You see, even what you say, should be considered cheating, how else will we draw a line or make it easy for us to see who cheats? You do realise, that what you say, is just another form of stacking? Either stacking is illegal or it isn't. Not like you say, where some things are legal and other thigns are not. And both of them can be mixed up. Yes, even if we're only talking quests, where the player is just "inserting" them into his deck, seemingly at random, should be considered cheating.

I'm on a small crusade here, because there just isn't a clear line. What is stacking, what isn't? Stacking is illegal, but obviously, some stacking things aren't. That's why I simply say, allow stacking, enforce good shuffling.It won't change the scene, because it will not really change anything, instead, it will make more games more random...

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