Hello,

I've heard a quite interesting story regarding the recent Eternal Weekend Pittsburg (Oct. 9-12) at the Legacy event. Here's the exact transcript of the story as it was told:

"...Oh, a very interesting thing I saw was one table over to me at Eternal weekend, a person when um presenting their deck, had a deck that was like the cards in the deckbox equated to probably if I had to guess 85 card, right? And 10 of those cards were made to look like they were playing a certain deck. Something that was scary like I don't know whether it's Stifle or Oops or you know something that makes you play differently than you would otherwise, right? And then when the match actually got on its way, the opponent who saw what that guy had before realized it's completely different and called a judge to deck check him, because it's like, yo, like this is not what i saw. Like what the heck's going on? You know what i mean? And then initially the judges gave him a game loss because had more than 75 cards in his deckbox. And here's where the interesting thing happens. The um that guy who got the game loss said 'no i don't because look' and he takes those 10 cards out of their sleeves inside the deck box and said 'look, they have no magic backs, they're not backed, which means they're not legal magic cards and so they're not to be considered a part of my deck' and under the current rules he is correct, and so they withdrew the game loss and the match proceeded. But that was just like an example of what one of my friend was talking about before, you know what I mean? Is it, can it be construed as something to frowned upon by some people? Yeah, possibly. But is it against the rules? Technically not. ..."

 

In my opinion going to the length to make proxies that can fool a player across the board (and seemingly even the judge) is at least Unsporting Conduct - minor, but could be even understood as cheating attempt. Of course i get the argument of "no one forced them to look at my "luckybringing proxies" (and other bs excuses), but still it seems something thats very fishy. If this is 100% legal i guess every really competitive player should do this, as even if the bait only works 10% of the time, its still gives them an advantage.

 

Does anyone know the Judge who issued the verdict? Also what does those who write the IPG think about this situation?

Edited Ferenc Zubora (Oct. 31, 2025 01:46:26 PM)

Hi Ferenc, I have moved this post from the Rules Q&A forum (which is for questions that relate to the Comprehensive Rules) and into the Competitive REL forum.

Please keep in mind that it might not be possible to discuss details of specific events, and that description of events that someone says they saw happen "one table over" may not be accurate or complete. However, there may be some interesting discussion to be had here, so I'm going to leave this thread open for now :)

I don't know any details about the actual call, but as described, I don't consider this a problem worthy of usc-minor or anything else. Players are allowed to attempt to mind-game each other in various ways - doing something like writing the name of a deck they aren't playing on their deckbox is allowed. This strikes me as a fairly analogous situation.

Originally posted by Brook Gardner-Durbin:

I don't know any details about the actual call, but as described, I don't consider this a problem worthy of usc-minor or anything else. Players are allowed to attempt to mind-game each other in various ways - doing something like writing the name of a deck they aren't playing on their deckbox is allowed. This strikes me as a fairly analogous situation.

Hello Brook,

thanks for clearing things up!

My gut-feeling and my first instinct tells me this is inheritly wrong and should not be allowed.

Yes players are allowed to mind trick and write weird stuff. But the fun ends for me if they are deliberately trying to make an opponent believe the cards that are stored with their deck are actually real magic cards. Why else would they act in such a way? Also they use cards that would be legal and probably very playable in certain decks. 

Bringing Mana and Storm Counters with your Red Stompy Deck or store some goblin tokens with your creatureless control deck is nothing I see an issue with, but pretending to play magic cards that are not real goes to far in my opinion. 

I agree it is sometimes hard to draw the line but why does it matter so much if the card backs are fake or real? The player wants to create the impression that these cards are real, legal in the format and playable. Why should we give them special treatment? Also one could argue they created their own proxies which is not allowed. One could argue they brought realistically looking fakes that probably could be played in their deck without even being registered on their decklist?! The least I would do if someone would try to pull that off at an event I was the HJ off was to tell the player to put these counterfeits away for the reminder of the tournament. 

I am pretty sure, that the spirit of the rules would not enjoy this behavior.

Also after some thinking and rereading isn't this cheating?

Hear me out. The player does something to gain an advantage? Yes they make their opponent believe they play a different deck. Are they aware of what they are doing? Absolutely. Here is the Weakpoint of the cheating idea. Also were they doing something illegal? I would argue yes. They stored cards with their deck and sideboard that are legal in that format and until their opponent finds out about the real deck the cards are chosen to imply that they are very playable in the deck the player presented. Now are they aware that it is illegal? Probably not, because it never occurred and it is probably not easy to convince people here of this being illegal - or at least that it should be. 

I still do not understand completely why we should not do anything here. The player very obviously wants to make the impression that the cards are real. Why not give him a penalty that fits the discription? I personally believe storing random cards with their deck because a player has no other space and forgets about them being stored there should not be punished worse as someone who deliberately and premeditated puts counterfeits between their cards to make their opponents believe those cards are real. 

Edited Tristan Hof (Nov. 1, 2025 09:46:31 PM)

Quite an interesting conversation, thanks for posting this! Let me start very bluntly: this is not cheating or USC, because nothing illegal is happening here. The player is trying to trick their opponent, you may have opinions on that, but nothing illegal has happened and there's no reason for any judge to step in here.

 

Let's reverse the argument: if we declare this to be illegal, where do we draw the line? Can a player only bring tokens that they actually play in their deck? Can a player use the beautiful Judge Balance playmat if they don't play the card Balance in their deck? We have a clear line already: don't put any legally playable cards in your deckbox, bacause that could lead to actual problems of playing cards you didn't register as part of your deck. There are no rules for jedi mind tricks, and IMHO for good reason.

 

And just to take this argument one step further: what if a player plays a mono green deck and only has 10 sideboard cards they wish to play; can they put 5 red and black cards in their sideboard, and before the start of the match “accidentally” show 5 legally registered SB cards to their opponent? It's done intentionally in order to gain an advantage, but it's 100% within the rules (assuming they registered these cards as part of their SB and these cards are legal in the format).

 

TL;DR: what Brook said.

Agree with Brook and Dustin.

We make a distinction between Unsporting behavior and behavior that is not sporting.
One is disallowed, the other just isnt nice.

What I see as happening next is:
1) This player gets all the other cards in their deck scrutinized very carefully. 
2) Player given a direct instruction to not to keep those "cards" in their deckbox because of the confusion that having pseudo counterfeit cards in their deck boxes causes via the perception of cheating.
3) A check with previous opponents encountered any of these pseudo counterfeits in previous rounds. 

And to the comment: "If this is 100% legal i guess every really competitive player should do this, as even if the bait only works 10% of the time, its still gives them an advantage."

I'd simply point out that if they invested the time and energy that they spent in creating this troll into practicing, they would find that they dont need to stoop to such infantile deception, and if they really want a reputation for winning that way.

 

I'd like to weigh in with a question I have. 

The IPG states that its a problem if theres extra cards stored that could conceivably be used in the deckbox. Im aware counterfeits are not real cards. But if they hold up unless under close scrutiny they could conceivably be boarded into the deck unless someone inspects the back. Why are cards that could be used exempt because they are fake? 

I agree that if we have to fully disregard these cards that we arrive at no infraction. I also agree that we are allowed to mindtrick our opponent. But somehow this feels wrong, because using a real card would get you a gameloss (or DQ in some situations.). Using a card that looks exactly the same for all purposes, probably could be used in the deck without arising suspicion, but is not real is totally fine and legal.

There is a problem here, but I believe that it's a Tournament Organizer issue, not a Judge issue.
The player is knowingly in possession of convincing (at least on one side) counterfeit cards and is using them (albeit in a non-play purpose) in a sanctioned WPN event, and I know from discussions with various tournament organizers and store owners that such things can cause serious issues if Wizards finds out that they happened and weren't addressed. If anyone on that side of things has any insight, I would be happy to hear it.