Knowledge Pool: Landed in Hot Water - SILVER

I was wondering how a player can gain advantage from marked cards without cheating.

If you're breaking a rule (marked cards) and you're gaining an advantage (as suggested by the scenario) then it's USC - Cheating… unless you don't actually know marked cards are bad. However, a ten-year-old knows that marked cards are bad, you don't even have to play Magic to know that, and we're dealing with a player who is savvy enough to shuffle his deck before sleeving (which is better than most players I know.) There's no way he doesn't know that it's bad.

So, a rule has been broken and the player knows it's bad. That means that…

1. if there's no advantage, it's not USC - Cheating.
   
2. if there is an advantage, it is USC - Cheating.
   

There can't be an advantage without it being USC - Cheating. However, the Knowledge Pool solution says:

Knowledge of this could enable a player to gain substantial advantage, so the penalty is upgraded to a Game Loss.

Seems to me it should be either a Warning or a DQ but never a Game Loss. Since the scenario rules out cheating, I don't see how a Game Loss is possible.

Is this a case of “if it could have been used to cheat, then it needs to be punished more severely”?

Edited Jochem van 't Hull (Nov. 28, 2017 09:54:42 AM)

Jochem,

The Game Loss upgrade applies if a player would have been able to take advantage of the markings (ask: if I point this out to the player, would that player then be able to go on to take advantage). It is not: did they take advantage (that would be cheating). It's seen players not realize that some sleeves were of differing lengths. Sometimes players are using 10-month old sleeves and don't realize they've sideboarded 5 cards in whose sleeves still have a shiny gloss to the back, and can be spotted against the 55 other non-glossy-backed maindeck cards. And of course there is the classic “not entirely opaque and playing with Double Faced Cards” white-dot Game Loss.

Originally posted by Jochem van 't Hull:

If you're breaking a rule (marked cards) and you're gaining an advantage (as suggested by the scenario) then it's USC - Cheating… unless you don't actually know marked cards are bad.

A player can know that marked cards are bad, and at the same time, he can not know that some of the cards in his deck actually are marked.

A player targets a shroud creature. You don't ask yourself if he knows that shroud creatures cannot be targeted … you ask yourself if he is aware that that specific creature has shroud.

Edited Francesco Scialpi (Nov. 28, 2017 05:20:55 PM)

For cheating there has to be intent and the player maybe not be aware the cards are marked in the first place


Sent from my iPhone

On 28 Nov 2017, at 02:59, Jochem van 't Hull <forum-39992-ec45@apps.magicjudges.org<mailto:forum-39992-ec45@apps.magicjudges.org>> wrote:


Knowledge Pool: Landed in Hot Water - SILVER<https://apps.magicjudges.org/forum/topic/39423/>

I was wondering how a player can gain advantage from marked cards without cheating.

If you're breaking a rule (marked cards) and you're gaining an advantage (as suggested by the scenario) then it's USC - Cheating… unless you don't actually know marked cards are bad. However, a ten-year-old knows that marked cards are bad, you don't even have to play Magic to know that, and we're dealing with a player who is savvy enough to shuffle his deck before sleeving (which is better than most players I know.) There's no way he doesn't know that it's bad.

So, a rule has been broken and the player knows it's bad. That means that…

1. if there's no advantage, it's not USC - Cheating.
2. if there is an advantage, it is USC - Cheating.

There can't be an advantage without it being USC - Cheating. However, the Knowledge Pool solution says:
Knowledge of this could enable a player to gain substantial advantage, so the penalty is upgraded to a Game Loss.
Seems to me it should be either a Warning or a DQ but never a Game Loss. Since the scenario rules out cheating, I don't see how a Game Loss is possible.

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Jochem, you're right that if the player did take advantage of the markings, it would be Cheating.

However, the wording references the potential for advantage (an earlier version of this infraction even used that word, “potential”). Essentially, the wording says, if either player noticed the markings, could they take advantage; not did they, or even would they.

d:^D

Originally posted by Jochem van 't Hull:

I was wondering how a player can gain advantage from marked cards without cheating.

On top of what everyone else said, marked cards can affect the shuffling process. If cards are marked by being warped, dirty, scuffed, shorter, longer, or thicker, those same cards may be more or less likely to end up on top of the deck after a shuffle and cut, even if neither player is consciously aware of the marking.