I think it's a mistake to try to parse individual phrases for whether they are or aren't Bribery, just as it's a mistake to try to just learn card interactions instead of learning the Comp Rules.

This thread remains a pretty good guide to Bribery, particularly the posts by Eric, Andy, Scott and Evan. That is, rather than trying to figure out exactly which phrases are okay and which are bad, we should just paint in broad strokes:

Single Elim Finals: Literally anything that doesn't involve stuff outside the prize pool is fine. Don't quibble over the difference between “drop” and “concede”, just hit the Drop Player button in WER if they don't play.

Everywhere else: There's no way to negotiate a match result in conjunction with prizes. If it's obvious to an opponent that the subtext is bribery, it's bribery, regardless of the phrasing.

And a way to guarantee you'll avoid getting DQ'd for bribery is just to play your match.

Edited John Brian McCarthy (Aug. 24, 2017 03:17:37 PM)

Originally posted by Isaac King:

Dominik, “loser gets all packs” and “I get all packs” are completely different statements. One of them is a symmetric offer that either player could choose to take, one of them is clearly an offer to concede.

Oops. Johanna and you are correct. English is hard. “I get all packs” does imply an offer to concede.

I need to repeat something that's been misunderstood in many other threads, including the one John Brian linked, above. (This relates to discussions prior to the finals.)

Prize splits and match results can be combined, but cannot be contingent upon each other. That statement is heavily dependent on English syntax, so I'll try again with examples.

“Want to split?” … “OK, want to concede?” –> combined, but the concession doesn't depend on the split.
“If you'll split prizes, I'll concede.” –> the outcome clearly depends on the prize split.

However, a far more important concept, repeated multiple times in that thread John Brian shared, is it's far better to steer players far away from the line, than to try and help them tiptoe that line. We might be able to comprehend my first distinction - combined vs. contingent - but I think (hope!!!) it's clear that players will get that wrong far too often. As we said, do not attempt to educate them on “magic bribery words that aren't really bribery”, instead guide them to what they can do.

d:^D