Subject: Reply to Randy Buehler's Crackdown on Cheating : For submission to the Dojo Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1998 09:46:55 -0000 From: "McCandless, Robin" To: "'fkusumot@ix.netcom.com'" While I agree with Randy that the Worlds were the most successfully policed Magic Tournament yet, there are a number of types of cheating that I feel the judges took no action to prevent, or actually occurred against myself and other members of the UK team. 1. Shaving sleeves. I have no idea whether this occurs, but in the hands of an expert a shaved deck is broken. Imagine in a Bloom-Drain deck shaving the top of cards drawers so the card is slightly narrower, and the bottom of the Cadaverous Bloom. Whenever you do a vampiric tutor or a natural balance, your opponent shuffles your deck, so you are entitled to cut it! This gives you the opportunity to choose a card drawer or a bloom at will ( providing you have good hands). Vampiric tutor becomes double tutor, you choose the top TWO cards of your deck ! 2. Opponent looking at your deck when they shuffle it. 4 people did this to me in the worlds. 2 may have been accidental, 2 defiantly meant to do it. There is no point in calling a judge, because the opponent just denies the charge, and there is no evidence. In other tournaments I have even has skilled card sharks do this whilst being watched by a judge and still get away with it undetected. 3. Opponent failing to take damage you deal to him. They play with a small , folded scrap of paper to record the life totals. They may well partially obscure the paper with their library or deck box in front of it. you begin to beat them down with a shadow creature, they do a dummy of writing the changed life total , but actually write nothing ( or maybe record the damage to an old score from a previous game if the paper is particularly cluttered). You deal the fatal hit, and claim the victory, they claim to still be on 6 life. The judge is called. The ruling is that you both get warnings for failing to agree on reality, and each players record of their OWN life total stands, so the cheat gets away with a lost game probably turned to a win, at the cost of only a warning. This post may sound over negative, but I believe these issues must be dealt with if the improvement in tournament policing we saw at the worlds is to be continued. Robin McCandless (UK national team, Team Reservoir Scrubs, Team Gnome)