Subject: Re: Mike Long = Cheating Bastard
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 00:36:06 GMT
From: edt@umich.edu (Eric Taylor)
Newsgroups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.strategy

This is a little something about the whole cheating issue. . .

* * *

Why is cheating such a problem with the dci and wotc, and what should be
done about it?  In my opinion, the problem is simple.  There is no
coherent set of rules in magic that cover game mechanics.

We do have an immense body of rules.  If I play an impulse and we both
read the card, you can see it says shuffle afterwards.  But everyone knows
that the errata says you don't.  What if it's something incredibly more
complicated?  Nearly every single card and effect has been codified.  From
the simplest little rule to the most complicated, we have thousands and
thousands of rules and errata that cover nearly every single topic of card
play.

It's wonderful that a game with such insanely complicated interactions can
be described so completely.

Yet. . .  What happens if you catch someone mana weaving their lands?

Some judges just pick it up and give it a shotgun shuffle.  Some judges
give a warning.  Some judges give a game loss.

The system of punishing the cheaters right now is set up 1) in a way that
you have to prove someone tried to cheat on purpose, 2) without any
appreciable guidelines to punish in gradations the various levels of
cheating.  Right now if someone deliberately cheats you punish him, but if
someone accidentally cheats then you don't punish him.

Imagine if you could argue your way out of a traffic ticket by just
saying, "I'm sorry officer, I didn't go through the red light on purpose.
It was an accident."

It's just too hard to prove intent to cheat.

This leads to the situation we have today.  We have to find find out:  Did
Mike Long deliberately drop a card or was it an accident?  Go ahead.  You
find that out.  I'll give you a hint.  The only way you're going to ever
know is if Mike Long tells you.  Even then you might wonder if he's just
joking.

When Mark Justice was found getting jiggy with the muscle slivers in
Atlanta, it was impossible to determine if he was in fact deliberately
adding extra slivers to his deck or if he was just replacing one which he
may have thrown in the trash can.

I think the whole idea of intent has to go out the window.

We need a codified system of rules and punishments.  And forget these
nearly meaningless cautions and warnings.  We need a set of rules that
gives out penalties for every single infraction.

Of course, you always have the discretion of the judge, so if a raw
beginner makes a silly mistake, the judge can still tell him how to play
the cards correctly and not give a penalty.

Some examples of what I mean by a codified system:

For mana weaving your deck an appropriate penalty would be an immediate dq
from the tournament.  For drawing an extra card, accidentally or on
purpose it doesn't matter, a game or match loss for a single instance, and
then a dq for a subsequent one.

Now, misrepresenting a card. . . such as casting a wrath of god with no
white mana or having a thalakos lowlands that never seems to get sleepy,
these have usually been cautions or warnings.

I think most cautions and warnings should go out the window.

You need immediate penalties for nearly all infractions, and even
penalties for misrepresenting cards.  There are a number of ways to give
out a penalty for something less than a game loss.  For instance, you can
give out loss of a turn, or loss of a card the next time you begin your
game.  These penalties are less than a game loss and means that people
won't laugh anymore at offenses that normally would have drawn a caution.

What is the penalty for playing a game with a card in your lap?  Its seems
to me that an appropriate penalty would be an immediate dq.  However, if
the normal penalty is decided at a simple match loss for a single incident
and then dq for any additional ones, that would be ok too, as long as all
the players can know ahead of time what the appropriate penalty is.

I think what bothers people is not so much the accusation of Mike Long
cheating.  What bothers people is that there seems to no penalty at all
for cheating.  In fact, if you are a name player, you seem to get extra
special treatment.

Whatever the rules are for dropping a card in your lap, we need to see it,
so we can see that name players aren't getting off easy. I think that a
complete set of rules for various infractions would help immensely.

If wotc and the dci can maintain the erratas for thousands and thousands
of rules and erratas why can't they maintain a list for the mere hundreds
of possible infractions and penalties for each one?

When you tap your mana and then untap it, what happens?  What if you tap
your mana, let go of it, and then later untap it again?  I have heard that
the rule is as soon as you let go of your mana you can't untap it again
but as long as you have your hands on it, you can go tappity untappity all
day long.  What is the rule?  Players don't know for sure, and judges seem
to make their judgements based on things they have heard about other
judges.

So, did Mike Long do it on purpose?  Do he do it by accident?

These are silly questions.

We don't need a witch hunt.  What we need is a hard codified set of rules
for the actual game mechanics.

--- edt