Yesterday I was looking at the current state of modern Kiki-Chord, so I went to Jeff Hoogland's website in order to adjust my deck to whatever he is doing. I was surprised to read a statement regarding random player stacking the deck while live-streaming a playtesting session. http://www.jeffhoogland.com/2016/08/short-comment-on-ryan-hipp/

Now, the rules establish that you should present your deck to your opponent after shuffling for additional shuffle or cut at competitive REL and it is encourage at regular, so situations like the one described above should be very easy to avoid if the players are careful, and even when that is not the case, there's the chance of a random spectator/judge catching a no-presentation of the deck.

What I would like to discuss here is the opposite situation. You present your deck to your opponent and he shuffles it. This is a situation that as a player highly dislike (mostly because people is not as careful as I am with my own cards) but that I tolerate because the rules dictate that I should. However, we have had cases in the past where opponents would stack your deck so you don't draw lands, or draw only lands. Since I'm a bit paranoid I don't draw from if the opponent don't/refuse to cut after he/she shuffled. In those cases, I'll explain that shuffle is not complete and will call a judge for additional shuffling. As I judge, I'd be very tempted to intervene a situation and ask for the players to cut the deck again.

I would like to hear what is the opinion or experience you all have in this topic. I really think that if your opponent shuffles your deck then it should be you cutting your own deck, since we know that shuffle tricks exist and the cut is a sign of transparency from the player that shuffles.

Comments?

Edited Victor Pinto (Aug. 30, 2016 11:43:08 AM)

I actually agree with the idea of allowing a cut after the opponent shuffles the deck. For the player who owns the deck, there are many methods with which they could try to cheat, and the opponent simply cutting is not sufficient to fix that. However it tends to be more difficult to stack your opponent's deck in any way other than to put certain cards on top or bottom, and a simple cut would help mitigate that problem.

One issue with this is that we not have to define a “cut” in the official documents, since we would now be considering that a different action from a “shuffle”. However I don't think that would be a big problem.



Under current policy however, the opponent is allowed to shuffle the deck however they want to, so please don't ask him/her to cut or shuffle in any specific way.

Opponents get the last touch because you know your own deck.

If you've marked your deck, put a particular card in a slightly shorter sleeve, or put in the one card you want backwards in the deck, you can put it on top with the last cut.

Furthermore, you're entitled to look at your own deck and your opponent is not. It's difficult to keep a card on top of the deck, track it through the opponents shuffle, and cut back to it, all without the opponent noticing. But it's far, far more difficult to find the card you want in a deck you can't look at, move it to the top, and keep it there without getting caught.

Short of assigning an individual shuffler-judge to each match, we'll never eliminate shuffle-cheating completely. But giving the opponent last touch of the deck reduces the frequency and impact of cheaters by a lot.

Edited Eli Meyer (Aug. 30, 2016 02:23:04 PM)

I think there's something of a check and balance here. You control your deck and your sleeves, so if we give you the last touch, it's trivial to exploit marked cards or sleeves. Yes, we penalize you if we catch you - but I think it would be far too easy to exploit subtle markings without raising immediate suspicion. A player is far more likely to be able to manipulate their own deck undetected than a random deck that was just placed in front of them.

So, some philosophy on how I handle a call like this. “Judge, can you shuffle my deck, my opponent shuffled it and I'm concerned that he's manipulated it somehow.” I'd like to talk to this player, away from the table, about what they've observed. If they do have a concern, then you have a few ways to investigate. Use your judgement to balance all the information available to you - players, spectators, past opponents, and the current state of the deck - and decide how far to pursue this. Insufficient Shuffling is a warning that should probably be issued far more often than it is, and it's important to record it when it happens for tracking.

If you're a player in this situation, please tell the judge you'd like to ask them a question away from the table. That helps preserve the judge's ability to investigate the situation.

Thanks for your insights on the topic. I think my approach is more related to the… philosophy? of shuffling. I think that whoever shuffles a deck can cheat, that is the reason as to why you “offer” the deck for a cut, as a sign of transparency. I personally never shuffle my opponent decks for the same reason. I start trusting my opponent and for me it is enough if they offer the deck for a cut.

I see shuffling your opponents deck as a sign of distrust, and that sets me in the same mood, i.e. if my opponent distrust me, and is shuffling my deck, then there's no reason for me to trust that he is not going to cheat. Now, I understand that this is way beyond any reasonable discussion about shuffling, and I understand that you naturally have a small advantage when shuffling within a game. We have plenty of evidence that at the start of a game, if your opponent stacks only spells on top, is going to make you shuffle probably about 99% of the time, and for that he don't need a really deep knowledge of your deck. Also, the number of decks you are going to encounter is finite and an experience opponent might know what to look for.

I see a strong point in subtle marked cards, and for me is the most valid reason I see to allow the opponent the final touch of the deck, but it still makes me not completely happy.

I think Victor may have proposed an interesting solution to the problem
here, even if unintentionally. If I am misrepresenting your position,
please say so.

The reasons why we do not allow a player to be the last person to
manipulate their own deck when shuffling have been clearly presented.
However, there have been several high-profile (and probably many other
lower-profile) incidents of shuffle-cheats whereby a player will stack
seven lands or seven spells on top of their opponent's deck when shuffling
it. Of course, those incidents are very clearly cheating, but what I think
Victor is suggesting is some way to give players some peace of mind that
their opponent is not always shuffle-cheating them when they shuffle their
deck.

Here's the suggestion I'd like to discuss: what are the ramifications and
challenges to requiring players to end their shuffling of their opponent's
deck with a single cut?

To me, this option has some clear benefits. It preserves the same
last-touch philosophy that we currently employ. As discussed, it is very
difficult for a player to take advantage of subtle markings on their
opponent's cards while shuffling, so there is limited danger in letting a
single cut be the last touch. It also mostly eliminates the shuffle cheats
that were employed recently. It would necessitate defining a single cut in
the MTR, but that doesn't seem terribly arduous.

What do you all think of that option? What are some problems with it that
I have missed?

Originally posted by Victor Pinto:

Thanks for your insights on the topic. I think my approach is more related to the… philosophy? of shuffling. I think that whoever shuffles a deck can cheat, that is the reason as to why you “offer” the deck for a cut, as a sign of transparency. I personally never shuffle my opponent decks for the same reason. I start trusting my opponent and for me it is enough if they offer the deck for a cut.

I can understand the thinking behind this, but I see this line of thinking as a mistake. After all, the rules require that the opponent must be offered a chance to randomize the deck. Following rules is no reason for me to trust or distrust a person with regard to the state of his or her deck.

Originally posted by Victor Pinto:

I see shuffling your opponents deck as a sign of distrust, and that sets me in the same mood, i.e. if my opponent distrust me, and is shuffling my deck, then there's no reason for me to trust that he is not going to cheat.

In the same way as offering a deck is merely following the rule, I see no reason to assume that the opponent's randomizing my deck is anything more than following the rule.

Originally posted by Justin Miyashiro:

Here's the suggestion I'd like to discuss: what are the ramifications and
challenges to requiring players to end their shuffling of their opponent's
deck with a single cut?

That depends on how easy it is to put a pile of land or spells in the middle and then cut to it. I would suspect that anyone who can shuffle a pile of land or spells to the top of the deck is also skilled enough to shuffle them to the middle.

The reason the MTR has a specific requirement at Comp and Pro REL that the opponent must shuffle is to remove any “trust” issues.

Players can point to the tournament rules and say that it's not that they don't trust their opponent but the rules require them to shuffle.

As Mark mentions, we had to add “must shuffle opponent's deck” to the MTR because, in some cultures, it was considered an insult to “not trust” your opponent's shuffling.

The shuffle process used to include: you shuffle, present, opponent shuffles, you get one last cut. We removed that - about seven years ago - because we believed it far more likely for players to manipulate their own decks. This was actually a carefully considered change; it was requested by some of the well-known pros, for those reasons, and I still believe it's the correct policy.

Originally posted by Victor Pinto:

we have had cases in the past where opponents would stack your deck so you don't draw lands, or draw only lands

Victor, this is the fail point in your thought process; once you introduce an element of Cheating, other (normally very logical) parts of policy crumble. The IPG has a few bits about Cheating, and a whole lot of stuff for honest mistakes. Please don't try to rewrite the parts for honest mistakes because of the possibility of Cheating. That just doesn't work.

Originally posted by Victor Pinto:

I understand that you naturally have a small advantage when shuffling within a game

Well, no, you really shouldn't be gaining any advantage. Randomization should be … well, random, not advantageous.

If you suspect your opponent has done something illegal - e.g., moving all spells or all land to the top of the deck - then get a judge involved.

d:^D

Oh, I understand. At least I'm glad to know that in the past it was like that, and that it got changed to prevent cheating. I guess that when a player wants to cheat they will always are going to find a way to do it regardless the rules we establish.

And about the advantage about shuffling I was considering the “if” you want to cheat, it is probably easier to do it by stacking a particular card in your deck rather than stacking your opponents deck, and there the “small advantage”, sorry that I messed that up!

Thanks!

A new article that should bring some light into this discussion:
http://blogs.magicjudges.org/playerexperience/2016/09/01/mysteries-and-wonders-of-deck-shuffling/

Just wondering about one thing in the article: Shouldnt we avoid “Block Shuffling” in Eternal Formats because of the bents etc and not Riffle/Classic Shuffling?

If there is really a concern, I believe a solution would be to roll a d6 or something post roll and move the top d6 cards to the bottom. Hard to stack the top of a deck then.

I don't believe it'll come to that though.

Side/mash shuffles are essentially as effect

Originally posted by Johannes Wagner:

Just wondering about one thing in the article: Shouldnt we avoid “Block Shuffling” in Eternal Formats because of the bents etc and not Riffle/Classic Shuffling?

“Mash” shuffling is, to my understanding, functionally similar to the classic “riffle” shuffle and is by far the most common shuffle we see among players. Mash shuffling also has very little risk of ever bending double-sleeved cards.

Block shuffling is completely insufficient. One mathematical analysis I've seen puts the number of “block” shuffles you need to randomize a deck in the low thousands.