Subject: Response to: 'HORSESHIT' Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 15:40:13 -0400 From: "Nate Clarke" To: Ok Bartholow.. You've done a good job of slinging the horseshit in your article which does everything but get to the point.. First you start off saying my examples were cheating, hence wrong and unethical.. Then in the next paragraph you ramble about how they should make my examples legal. The exact lines: 'It seems reasonable that the DCI should consider allowing illegal game plays as long as neither player objects. This will create many many many problems of it's own, but may be the best possible rule, at least at the Pro level of competition.' You seem to contradict yourself here, but at least you clarify your stance in the next pragraph by saying 'HORSESHIT' a lot.. It seems to me that the only point of this article was for Dave Bartholow to make himself look entirely clean and ethical. After reading his article, everyone would think of Dave Bartholow (Team Deadguy) as a great guy(s) who would never cheat. On that note, let me give you yet another example of 'cheating' or 'unethical play.' Whichever you like to call it.. You're at a $1000 tournament, which you're going to play T2 in. You've decided to play Bloom. For some reason this tournament isn't using deck registration.. You go to see who your first round opponent is. Oh wow.. You know this guy, and you know he's playing Bloom too! Too bad you have multiple Abeyances in your sideboard.. Those would be great against him. Just then you remember that you never turned in a deck list, so the judges don't know your starting deck.. Do you sneak the extra Abeyances in or do you keep them in your SB where they should be? This might be a tough decision for some people, not for Dave Bartholow though. We all know what he would do here.. Don't we? Guess what, you thought wrong. This exact situation happened to Dave Bartholow at a Grey Matter in New York. He put his Abeyances in without a thought. I've heard multiple stories from Team Deadguy as to what really happened. Bartholow has said it was a 'metagame move' he made before the tournament. Chris Pikula has said that Bartholow played some fun games before the first round and had forgotten to de-sideboard. They must be telling the truth though.. This is Team Deadguy we're talking about, the most ethical team in Magic.. The reason I wrote my initial article was to receive honest replies that would give opinions on what should be done in certain 'unethical' situations. What I got for a reply from Dave Bartholow was nothing but mud-slinging being used to improve a reputation... I don't know about you, but after I read Dave's article my respect for him dropped. Instead of suggestions to solve the problem of that he seems to hate so much, he decided to say 'horseshit' a lot. He also resorted to calling me a 'scumbag' for writing a truthful article which tackled an important aspect of Magic. For this Bartholow, I give you the one finger salute. Thanks for listening.. - Nate Clarke.