Situation-

AP casts Thougthseize targeting NAP
NAP responds with Brainstorm, putting two cards to the top of their deck
When NAP moves his hand away from the deck again, AP gets momentarily confused and thinks NAP is presenting post-shuffle. AP picks up NAP's deck and gives it a quick overhand shuffle before NAP can stop him.
NAP calls a judge, explains what's happened, and shows you his hand of 4 lands saying “I put my only spells on top to hide them from Thoughtseize and now they've been shuffled away.”


When this came up at our event this weekend, we got really lucky - NAP had put the two cards back in the opposite orientation to the other cards in the deck, meaning it was really easy to find them and put them back on top. Assuming you're not as lucky as we were in that situation, and it's not possible to identify the two cards put on top, how do you handle this situation?

Follow up - what about at Regular REL? (I know this is the Competitive forum, but posting in both seems messy)

It's going to be really really hard for AP to make me not give him UC - Cheating here (and likewise, a Serious Problem at Regular). Assuming he can convince me that he was genuinely confused, there's nothing much we can do; the game has been irreparably destroyed. I don't think there is a fix for this anywhere in the IPG, and I don't even know if we can repair the game state partially if the players have taken notes, since the notes would be incomplete at best. I would give AP a Warning for GRV and tell the players to carry on.

However, allow me to stress again that it will take some very good convincing to get me to not issue UC - Cheating in this case in the first place.

Cheating? Really? Sounds to me like AP got confused and shuffled the deck. This does not denote cheating unless I uncover something when I talk to the players.

I'm certainly not going to start at the position of assuming foul play. That said, you are right in that it's going to be awfully hard to repair the game state here. Not sure how AP doesn't get a game loss in this case.

I would probably need to be there, but assuming any sort of “normal” play pattern, I find it difficult to think of a scenario in which putting back 2 cards for a Brainstorm can be construed as an invitation to shuffle the deck, and if the opponent wasn't inviting the player to shuffle, then shuffling the deck randomly for no reason when you know you're not allowed to and irreparably breaking the game state is fishy to me. Doing so with a Thoughtseize on the stack, when you know your opponent is likely to have made his hand worse rather than better with the Brainstorm, yells “fishy” about as loudly as is humanly possible. I didn't say I'd start at UC - Cheating, but I would certainly investigate, and I would certainly be pretty tough on the player to provide a very good explanation.

Contrarily, while I think giving AP a game loss here is probanly the best fix overall, what infraction do you apply that gets you to game loss? In my original reply I thought about what infraction I would be giving, and I couldn't come up with anything that would make game loss applicable.

Lyle you should never reverse engineer an infraction when you think a specific penalty would fit. This contradicts a lot of the policy on which the IPG was built.
You may be wrong in your first assumption of a penalty and then you make up a whole construct of what you think may fit while in fact it does not. We should always find the infraction first and then apply the proper penalties, independently of how hard it is to find the infraction in the first place.
I do agree that a proper investigation needs to be done in this case to convince me of not having cheated. If I'm reasonably sure that it was an honest mistake it will be just a GPE:GRV with a warning, no further fix and some sort of feel bad moment.

Originally posted by Lyle Waldman:

, I find it difficult to think of a scenario in which putting back 2 cards for a Brainstorm can be construed as an invitation to shuffle the deck, and if the opponent wasn't inviting the player to shuffle, then shuffling the deck randomly for no reason when you know you're not allowed to and irreparably breaking the game state is fishy to me.

I would like to disagree here. I've also been at an FNM where player A cut the deck of player B because he had thought B had fetched when he had instead used Preordain before A could draw…. Those things happens

Originally posted by Lyle Waldman:

Contrarily, while I think giving AP a game loss here is probanly the best fix overall, what infraction do you apply that gets you to game loss? In my original reply I thought about what infraction I would be giving, and I couldn't come up with anything that would make game loss applicable.

Like Christian said, wanting to give someone a Game Loss because of what he did and searching for an infraction to come to this result is not how it works.

The process is actually built into the structure of the IPG:
- Find the infraction
- Hand out the Penalty
- Apply the Fix (if applicable)

Originally posted by Christian Genz:

Lyle you should never reverse engineer an infraction when you think a specific penalty would fit. This contradicts a lot of the policy on which the IPG was built.
You may be wrong in your first assumption of a penalty and then you make up a whole construct of what you think may fit while in fact it does not. We should always find the infraction first and then apply the proper penalties, independently of how hard it is to find the infraction in the first place.
I do agree that a proper investigation needs to be done in this case to convince me of not having cheated. If I'm reasonably sure that it was an honest mistake it will be just a GPE:GRV with a warning, no further fix and some sort of feel bad moment.

This sounds like exactly what I said, except in different words. What, precisely, did I say that was wrong in this instance? I find this situation somewhat unclear. If you would like to take this to PM, please by all means do so, or I will continue reading this thread for a response from you or anyone else who would like to hep clarify.

EDIT: Aha. I think I found the point of miscommunication. When I said “I thought about what infraction I would be giving”, I did not intend that statement to be connected with the statement “It would be nice if I could give a game loss here”. I suppose I can kind of see how one might read that those two statements are connected, but rest assured the connection was unintended. Then, the infraction that I wanted to give did not have a penalty of game loss, so be it. What I intended to say in my reply to Greg above was that it would be nice if there were an infraction that would be applicable here to give a game loss, but as the documents are written, the infraction committed is GRV, and hence game loss is not an applicable penalty. My phrasing was specifically to challenge Greg to contradict me if, indeed, there was such an infraction that perhaps I missed when reading IPG, and bring it to my attention if I was indeed incorrect. I'm pretty sure I'm right, though :-)

Edited Lyle Waldman (March 2, 2015 02:31:20 AM)

Hi Lyle,

I'm sorry if you feel singled out. I misunderstood your explanation to
greg and responded to that. I responded to you instead of greg because he
just asked a question (how does he not get a GL) while yours goes into a
lot more details (if you read it as a causal dependency, something you
didn't intend to imply).

Don't worry. Your answer after mine took care of that and it's still good
to have a “please don't do stuff like that” in the forum :)

jeremie

Edited Jeremie Granat (March 2, 2015 03:52:32 AM)

I've myself done the cut after a Brainstorm, by honest mistake :) I don't assume easily that a player is cheating by doing that. Most players look really puzzled and apologize as soon as you arrive to the table. These things happen ;)

If you can fix it (player left those two cards opposite direction, or the cut is not perfect and easy to determine, as was mine), do it. Otherwise, move on, after GRV and that stuff. There's nothing you can really do if the deck is perfectly shuffled, and any creative fix is not very reccommended.

Different strokes, different folks, I guess. I've never done, seen, or heard of this happening. The only situation I would feel comfortable not issuing Cheating in this case is if the player can prove to me one of the following things:

1) The opponent actively presented his deck (by physically moving the deck to the center of the table, which traditionally means an offer to shuffle) or made a hand motion after his Brainstorm which would indicate a present; and/or

2) The opponent has a habit throughout the game of not presenting his deck after he shuffles and the player has had to remind the opponent to present his deck on one or more occasions previously in the match.

If I'm not comfortable believing at least 1 of these 2 things I'm going to think very carefully about issuing Cheating. The reason I'm not comfortable with the “sorry Judge I brain farted” excuse is because with a Thoughtseize on the stack, after a Brainstorm in response, knowing how that interaction works, is a very convenient place to have a “brain fart”. If the Thoughtseize-Brainstorm interaction were not a part of this, I might be a bit more lenient, but that interaction definitely raises the burden of proof for me.

I have done something similar on one occasion. My opponent played a scryland and scried. I was a bit distracted and something in my head told me, that I was supposed to shuffle the library, since my opponent had done some manipulation. Good thing he stopped me in time. Also seen it happen two more times during tournaments - both were honest mistakes.

The point is it doesn't have to be cheating right away. Investigate, of course, but not from the position of prosecutor, but that of a judge. Instead of “He's guilty, let him prove otherwise, but it will be hard for him” try to do more “There can be something more going on, let me check if it's true”. Ask a few questions and then form an opinion. Going from the position of certainty of players guilt can push your investigation not in the direction it should.

Edited Piotr Łopaciuk (March 2, 2015 02:42:42 PM)

If you believe AP made an honest mistake, would you allow a backup prior to the shuffle by recreating the known part of the library simply based on what AP tells you?
The other recent similar thread regarding Dig Through Time leads me to think we should leave the library as it is. But potential for abuse was low with DTT. Here, NAP has the opportunity to gain huge advantage from this mistake while AP doesn't seem to have the opportunity to stop NAP before it's too late. If the solution is to leave the library as it is, it could create an incentive for players to cheat.

Originally posted by Nicolas Mihajlovic-Gendron:

If you believe AP made an honest mistake, would you allow a backup prior to the shuffle by recreating the known part of the library simply based on what AP tells you?

Nope. If I'm not certain about which cards have been shuffled, there's no way I am going to authorize a backup.

Originally posted by Nicolas Mihajlovic-Gendron:

AP doesn't seem to have the opportunity to stop NAP before it's too late

We don't know from this scenario and it's probably a “you had to be there” situation. An opponent reaching for my library could tell me something isn't right and I could have time to react. The keyword is “could”. Maybe I got distracted? Maybe I was looking at my hand and thinking hard wether to answer Thoughtseize with another spell? Investigation is important in determining the outcome. Be aware, investigation isn't always connected to suspicion of cheating. More often than not it is used to find out what exactly has happenned in order to make a correct and fair ruling.

Originally posted by Nicolas Mihajlovic-Gendron:

If the solution is to leave the library as it is, it could create an incentive for players to cheat.

Many situation create an incentive for players to cheat. Our role as judges is to determine if that's the case. However it's important not to rush our decision. If you think a player might have cheated, investigate!

Lyle Waldman
1) The opponent actively presented his deck (by physically moving the deck to the center of the table, which traditionally means an offer to shuffle) or made a hand motion after his Brainstorm which would indicate a present; and/or

2) The opponent has a habit throughout the game of not presenting his deck after he shuffles and the player has had to remind the opponent to present his deck on one or more occasions previously in the match.

3) NAP saw his opponent do something with his library and wanted to shuffle it out of habit.
Would you disqualify the player if neither of the two situations happenned and he wasn't aware that he's done something wrong? How about if during the shuffle he's noticed, that he shouldn't be shuffling the library? I wouldn't think of this situation as a clear-cut DQ/NO-DQ based on these two situations. Between black and white there are many shades of grey. Once again, investigation!

Originally posted by Lyle Waldman:

1) The opponent actively presented his deck (by physically moving the deck to the center of the table, which traditionally means an offer to shuffle) or made a hand motion after his Brainstorm which would indicate a present; and/or

2) The opponent has a habit throughout the game of not presenting his deck after he shuffles and the player has had to remind the opponent to present his deck on one or more occasions previously in the match.

3) NAP saw his opponent do something with his library and wanted to shuffle it out of habit.
Would you disqualify the player if neither of the two situations happenned and he wasn't aware that he's done something wrong? How about if during the shuffle he's noticed, that he shouldn't be shuffling the library? I wouldn't think of this situation as a clear-cut DQ/NO-DQ based on these two situations. Between black and white there are many shades of grey. Once again, investigation!

If he noticed during the shuffle and called a judge on himself, I would definitely be more lenient. However I don't believe that was in the original situation, and I've been cautioned about deviating too much on the original situation before, so let's not go there :)

Regarding the player not knowing they've done something wrong, assuming they can convince me of that I would be more lenient, but the bar for that is pretty high. They have to convince me that they do not know that they are not allowed to shuffle the opponent's deck when there is no instruction to do so. Which basically means they have to prove that they are completely new to the game and don't know the rules whatsoever, but yet still own Legacy cards. That's a pretty high bar.

Short of that, I suppose it is possible that the investigation can go in such a way that I can believe they made an honest mistake; however I am (without being there in person, obviously this is a “you have to be there” sort of thing) for the moment going to assume that any player who says “I didn't know that was wrong” is probably lying and trying to cover themselves. Not that I'm set on believing that they're lying no matter what, but I think the probability of that statement being true is significantly below 50% on average.

Originally posted by Lyle Waldman:

…for the moment going to assume that any player who says “I didn't know that was wrong” is probably lying and trying to cover themselves … I think the probability of that statement being true is significantly below 50% on average.

As a lot of highly experienced judges said before, most players are honest. The amount of cheaters is fairly low. If it wasn't, this game wouldn't be fun for anyone ;)

Edited Scott Marshall (March 3, 2015 12:40:30 PM)